About

Many Oregonians do not know about the threats to our public lands, even though one-third of all Oregonians depend on Mt. Hood National Forest for their drinking water. There are many ways you can help Bark spread the word about Mt. Hood National Forest, but the best way is to find something that will keep your interest and utilize your skills.

As a volunteer, you can help assess and document conditions in the forest and maintain Bark's legacy as a watchdog group. Utilizing factual evidence collected through our rigorous groundtruthing program we have greatly reduced the amount of timber taken from Mt. Hood National Forest.

You will find there are many different skills and tactics in forest advocacy. Science-based fact-finding, fieldwork, and research support Bark's legal work. Activist trainings, citizen outreach, education, and resource building generate momentum for Bark's campaigns. Public activism, demonstrations, and political efforts assert Bark's efforts to decision makers.

Bark's mission includes actively growing the forest advocacy movement by giving people like you the tools and training they need to be effective forest defenders.

Bark's activist training program is called Rad◦i◦cle, a free forest advocacy training program designed to empower individuals in the community with valuable skills in forest ecology, public lands advocacy, and community organizing.

Your training begins with a Volunteer Orientation session to present a brief history of Bark and Mt. Hood National Forest, discuss the many volunteer opportunities and trainings that Bark provides through its Rad◦i◦cle Program, and help you find your niche in the organization.

Bark volunteers are engaged, dedicated, and make a vital contribution to our work to protect the forests of Mt. Hood. Following orientation, you will choose where to focus your work. You may continue on through the Rad◦i◦cle program, join a committee, offer tech/IT support, create graphic content, photos, and videos, plan events, host volunteer actions, lead hikes in Mt. Hood National Forest, table at public events, find in-kind donations and/or do other important work to support the organization.

Click here to fill out the volunteer interest form and let us know what you are interested in!

Eventually you may participate in directly monitoring the Forest Service's actions. The Forest Service uses protocol known as Best Management Practices (BMPs) that are designed to be implemented during logging operations to reduce impacts to soil and water quality. Examples of BMPs include a logging company being prohibited from operating machinery on wet, exposed soil, or cutting trees close to a stream.

While BMPs seem like a good idea in theory, Bark has been looking deeper into the protocol to ask two questions:

-Does the Forest Service actually enforce these standards during operations so that logging companies don’t do more damage?-Are these BMPs actually mitigating the impacts of logging as intended?

Unsurprisingly, Bark volunteers have consistently recorded data that show BMPs are often neither implemented nor effective in mitigating logging’s impact to the forest.